Wellingtons Cafe at Bradmore Garden Centre

Wellington’s is the name of the recently re-opened and re-furbished café at the Bradmore Garden Centre in Nottingham. I had not been to the old café space but talking to people who had visited that one, this one is much bigger and a lot nicer. I thought that it was a nice clean, bright and open space. There is probably enough room for 70 or so people sitting inside and there is an outdoor area that looks as though it could seat 30 or so easily. It was pretty busy at lunchtime although the clientele did seem to be well represented with a more mature section of society. It transpired that there had been a special offer and that they were doing a large discount for senior citizens. Despite the busy rush the staff were full of smiles and seemed to be well on top of things, churning out platefuls of fish and chips, baguettes, sandwiches and copious pots of tea and buns to the eagerly awaiting throng.

I was happy to see that there was a more interesting sounding selection of sandwiches and baguettes than that which you may find at your basic café. I was almost tempted into getting the “Tuna and Rocket with Lime mayonnaise” just to try the mayo, and I could have easily just gone for one of my standard choices the “Sausage, Mature Cheddar and Red Onion Chutney” but that would have been too safe.

In the end I chose the “Cajun Chicken with Tzatziki and Rocket” on white bread as this contained three of my favourite sandwich fillings. It came with a small basic salad and some plain tortilla chips. The bread was good, nice and soft, the rest of the sandwich was a little bit tame, not a surprise given the type of customers that seem to be eating here. For my personal taste the Cajun chicken would have benefitted from actually having an element of spice and heat. It was more like a good basic chicken salad sandwich filling. It would have been a lot better if it had a bit less butter. Both slices of bread had so much butter spread onto them that it was a little bit overwhelming. It wasn’t just my sandwich either my companions sandwich suffered the same fate. I will put it down to early day teething as opposed to a major issue. I know that some other people had the paninis and that they were fine, so I think that there was just an over zealous butterer at play on the day that I visited. I saw quite a lot of hot food coming out to other tables and the diners seemed to be happily tucking in without complaints so I think that they are going to be doing a brisk trade here.

Looking at the options on the menu ‘from the Chargrill’ if I was to pass through this garden centre again for lunch then I might be tempted to try the same combination that I had in my sandwich and have the “Cajun Chicken Breast Burger with Tzatziki, Chips and a Salad“. It was a nice place to sit so I would happily try them again after pottering around the plants and pots.

The Wellington’s Café is at the Bradmore Garden Centre (which is run by the Cherry Lane group) located at Pendock Lane,
Bradmore, Nottinghamshire, NG11 6PQ. It is well signposted off the A60 between Bunny and Ruddington